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Most street youth in developing countries have used drugs, study says

About 60 per cent of street-involved youth in developing countries have used drugs at least once, according to a new report by a Canadian researcher based in Kenya.

“You could also probably assume (that’s) an underestimate because a lot of youth won’t report they’re using anything for fear of getting in trouble,” said Paula Braitstein, who has an appointment with the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Braitstein and her team reviewed the findings of 50 English studies from 22 countries, with a total of 16,987 participants.

The study, published in the journal Addiction on Friday, shows that nearly half (47 per cent) of street-involved children in 14 countries reported using inhalants such as glue.

It found substance abusers tend to be male and older “children of the street,” who have been on the street for a long time without family contact.

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Most often, they tend to start using drugs because of peer pressure, a need to forget their problems or escape reality and feel good, the study says.

In Eldoret, Kenya, where Braitstein lives, droves of kids walk toward a drop-in centre in each morning. Some are as young as 4, and many are carrying bottles of glue.

They’re heading to the centre for a much-needed meal and to get some sleep because it’s often too dangerous to sleep where they live. Kids will hand over their glue bottles for food every time without question, she says.

“These kids don’t really want to be using this stuff. They know that it’s bad for them.

“They take it so it gives them courage, they take it to kill hunger and cold. They take it to basically help them survive.”

Researchers don’t know exactly what long-term abuse of inhalants can do to youth, and more long-term research needs to be done, Braitstein says. There’s also a lack of data on the overall mental and physical health effects of street kids’ drug use, the researcher says.

There’s no Canadian data in the study because the country is too wealthy.

“(The study) doesn’t even capture aboriginal youth in Canada who are using (and) who, in many ways, mirror some of the issues facing kids here. That’s an area we’re hoping to explore sometime in the future,” Braitstein said.

While there may be more street-involved youth in countries like Kenya, and they may hit the streets younger, life on the streets in Canada isn’t much different, said University of British Columbia professor Elizabeth Saewyc.

“You’re still faced with that same issue of being hungry, trying to figure out how you’re going to have a place to stay tonight,” said Saewyc, who studies issues affecting vulnerable youth.

A study in 2006 showed that 43 per cent of street involved youth in Vancouver, and 56 per cent in Victoria, had used inhalants, compared to Braitstein’s 47 per cent number for developing countries.

“The life on the streets is not really all that much easier in Vancouver than it is in Rio de Janeiro or Mumbai,” Saewyc said.

“There may be a few things that are different but we’re still talking about kids who are using a survival lifestyle with a whole lot of exposure to trauma.”

In Toronto, Lindsay Kretschmer works with street-involved kids as the manager of youth services with Native Child and Family Services of Toronto.

Inhalants, like glue, aren’t as common in a city like Toronto with a wider range of substances available. She says street-involved youth here are more commonly taking drugs like crystal meth or pharmaceuticals like OxyContin.

But at least 75 to 85 per cent of the youth Kretschmer works with have mental health issues or an addiction, or grew up in a household with someone with an addiction.

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